1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus, an image processing method for performing variable printing, a program therefore, and a medium storing the program.
2. Description of the Related Art
These days, variable printing is available to superpose a plurality of variable data on fixed data and execute printing quickly.
Various kinds of page description languages have also been developed to efficiently print using variable data. For example, PODi (Print On Demand initiative) defines PPML (Personalized Print Markup Language) (PPML functional Specification, Version 2.1 (http://www.podi.org/)). In variable printing using such a page description language, an object rendered in a fixed region is cached in a storage device.
The cached object is extracted and superposed in a variable region by rendering. It can be controlled to achieve high-speed processing while avoiding repetitive rendering in a fixed region.
In general, fixed data of each object is cached in the storage device for reuse. As for print data in which a plurality of objects overlap each other, the storage device conventionally caches even an image hidden below another object.
The storage device needs to ensure an unnecessary area for an image always hidden below another object. Even such a wasteful image requires data rasterization processing or clipping processing of a subordinate object by a superior object for each record and each page, prolonging the processing time.